4 Steps to a Better Demo
It’s demo day!
You have your agenda sent. You’ve run through the demo internally. The team feels good about what they will show, and you have your talking points ready. The time comes to present. You hand over the screen share control to your presenter and…
Nothing happens
No demo fail
No negative reactions
Nothing went wrong
While it may be tempting to take a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach when dealing with a lukewarm reaction to a demo, I believe the situation presents an opportunity for growth. As agencies dedicated to development, our challenge is to showcase how we can offer services that customers cannot find elsewhere. If you find yourself in a position where your hard work met with less than enthusiastic reactions, make sure that you analyze why the audience may have been less impressed and give the following suggestions a try on your next demo.
2 things to remove from your demos
Although it may seem obvious, many teams still need to recognize the implications of these issues or mistakenly think they are just informing customers about how much effort is being put into their projects. In reality, this is not the case.
A local environment is never demo ready
Seeing a localhost pointer in the address bar during a demonstration is always disheartening, and it can indicate that your project was not completed on time. If your customer does not recognize this, be honest with them. You should have rescheduled the demo. Make sure your demos are done on a qualified server environment. Preferably, on production as a feature, the client can explore on their own or a staging server for features that have larger experience ramifications.
IDE’s are a NO NO
IDE = Integrated Development EnvironmentIt's a familiar feeling—a demonstration is underway, and the presenter hastily moves to a screen to show that the data has been successfully entered into the system. Even more concerning is when you spot a terminal on the screen share used to execute commands during the presentation.
These are powerful tools for developers, but they take away from the buzz of the moment that customers usually experience coming into a demo. Although setting expectations is key for a successful demonstration, we should strive to offer an even better experience than originally promised.
2 things to include in your demos
Let them see cake!
The ability to insert a terabyte of data into a database may be impressive, but it isn't engaging. To create a truly memorable experience for your customers, you need to go the extra mile and make something special. You could quickly get that terabyte of data into a database in 5 seconds - but what you do with those five seconds will make or break their excitement. The ability to build the functionality was expected - personalizing the experience will make them fall in love with you.
Everyone loves surprises
Google is well known for their easter eggs.
Don’t believe me… Go to google right now and type in “Do a Barrel Roll”, or better yet, click this link here.
Did you know about the wealth of secret "easter eggs" that Google has hidden in its flagship product? Blog posts on the topic exist. The point is this; Well-informed customers will have a deeper connection with your brand. Plus, that feeling of discovering something new and hidden acts as a powerful engagement trigger.
I enjoy adding Easter eggs with useful functions to projects. It's not often that customers will show enthusiasm for the extra detail of making their product “do a barrel roll” in a browser, but when you build a file upload form and give users the ability to drag and drop files it is truly appreciated.
If you need help with lukewarm responses to your demos, tweak your process following the above suggestions, and let me know how your demos improve. A delighted audience makes the team's hard work feel appreciated and valued - and there's nothing like enthusiasm and engagement during a demonstration to make it memorable.
